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My work is in rhetoric, focusing on civic argumentation and in particular on the communication of science in policy controversies. I’m curious about how people manage to reason with each other even when they disagree, perhaps deeply. So my goal is to develop theory that both captures the normative dimensions of arguing while also explaining how, in practice, disagreeable people manage to coordinate their transactions. Of course, throwing scientists into the mix just tangles things further; in some ways, we have to take an expert’s statements on trust and not ask for reasons. Why is that reasonable?–for it is.